


can we pleeease keep the baby vampire?

by DestinysBounty (MVPYurio), whichlights



Series: evergreen [7]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Adoption, Backstory, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Vampires, funny story this was supposed to be a oneshot. and ended up. not being that., yet another child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-30 11:50:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MVPYurio/pseuds/DestinysBounty, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichlights/pseuds/whichlights
Summary: Micah finds a baby vampire and has decided to not let anything that happened to him happen to her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> just when you thought these fuckers were done adopting kids

_It all started in Spain, with the royal family. A husband, a wife, a son, a daughter, and a disgrace._

_Of course, at one point, there were two sons, and a daughter. And by the time there was a disgrace, there would have only been one son anyways._

_Micah Josef Reols was born in the early fifteen hundreds, to Spanish royalty. (Later, he would learn his mother had “traveled over” from the newly dubbed “New World”, and he would hate himself forever for forgetting where, exactly. Somewhere in either the Caribbean or modern day Mexico. Maybe a northern South American country. He_ forgot _.)_

_Micah forgot a lot of things over five hundred years. Some of them were the important things._

_For the first seventeen years of his life, Micah had it all. He had an older brother- Rodge -and a younger sister- Sinnia -and he adored them both. He forgot things about them too._

_But the story is never about what you forget. It’s always about what you remember._

~~~~

“Micah, come on, you know that this block has literal fucking demons on it right now,” Ari sighed over the phone. “Micah!”

“Ari, please, I know there’s something I need to do here.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow night?”

“No. It can’t.”

“Micah Reols, if you hang up on me-”

Micah hung up on her, slipping his phone into his pocket. He sniffed at the air.

Milwaukee could be a dangerous place to be if you weren’t careful. Step on the wrong crack in the road too many times, and you’ve sealed a deal you didn’t know you were making. It was always most dangerous on nights with a full moon, especially if that happened to be the first full moon of a blue moon month.

The air always smelled of magic, but this time Micah could smell blood.

“Azazel?” He called out. “Now, what poor human are you tormenting now?”

No reply, just a faint whimper only his vampire hearing could have ever picked up on.

“Come on, you don’t scare me, Azazel. I am Micah Reols.”

More whimpering. Micah looked up at the sky. Just his luck- clouds. The demon could only form when there weren’t any. Micah wasn’t sure if that made him happy or annoyed.

Without fear of the demon that haunted this part of town, Micah ran towards the whimpers, heedless of danger.

There was a girl, with short hair that looked freshly cut, crying against the wall. Her mouth was covered in blood. She had tears in her eyes as she looked up at Micah. “Stay back,” she whispered. “I’m dangerous.”

“So am I.” Micah tried to assess her. Then it hit him. “You’re a fledgling.”

“A-a what? Is that some kind of code? Are you in a cult?”

“No, no cults.” Micah kneeled down in front of her, and suddenly he wished Lloyd were here. Lloyd was so much better at dealing with sad children. “What’s your name?” He tried.

She scooted away from him. “Go away. I-I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“Why would you hurt me?”

She gave out a coughing sob. “I’m a monster.”

“That blood on your face- did you…”

“No! No! I didn’t kill anyone!” She shrieked. “That’s, that’s the thing… I was murdered. And then I woke up and I had to dig through the dirt, and when I got to the surface there was a blood bag like from a blood bank, neatly labeled B positive. And I just… I knew it was human. But I was so hungry.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Micah guessed.

“It wasn’t enough. I, I found someone on the street. She was walking alone, and I just… I bit her. I grew fangs and I bit her wrist and then when I was full it took every ounce of my self control not to kill her. I almost did. G- G-” Her eyes grew panicked and every time she tried to say something she choked. “Why can’t I say G-”

“God,” Micah said it easily, the result of five hundred years of practice. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. You’re a vampire.”

She stared at him, and then she laughed. “No, I was drugged. That’s gotta be it. I’m on… hallucinogens or something.”

“Hate to break it to ya, but that’s not what happened.”

“How do you know all this?” She demanded. “You can’t be all that much older than me.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Oh, you’re right. I’m only older by five centuries. Give or take. Probably give.”

“This can’t be happening. This _cannot_ be happening.”

“Hey, hey, kid, tell you what. I’ll take you somewhere safe, we can patch you up, and we can talk about it tomorrow. It’s almost sunrise, and you can’t survive daylight.”

“I don’t have a pulse,” she whispered.

“I don’t either. My name is Micah.”

“Alexis.”

Micah got his phone back out and texted two people two different things.

To Ari, he sent a detailed text describing the situation, and an apology for scaring her half to death.

Then, after a brief hesitation, he sent Lloyd one sentence. More of a question, really.

I found a baby vampire can we keep her?

~~~~

_Micah’s brother died in a war. He’d left weeks ago, and by the time his family had realized where he’d gone, it was too late to get him back. Then the troops sent a message back and Micah realized his brother was gone from the Earth._

_Micah got into a fight with his father. “You could have stopped him!” Micah yelled, except he spoke in the Spanish of the 1500s, and his father responded in kind._

_“He made his choice! You are the crown prince!”_

_“I don’t want to be! I want my brother! You don’t care about him!”_

_Micah stormed out of the palace, and started his long-life life-long habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time._

_He was on the outskirts of town and ambushed by a vampire, even if he didn’t know it at the time. All Micah knew was someone was biting him. Years later, Micah would realize the exact mistake the vampire made. Hell, Micah made it himself. He bit him at the wrong angle, and not enough of the magic or chemical or whatever that was in vampire saliva got into Micah’s bloodstream. Which meant he was wide awake, scared of out his mind, and coming up with an incredibly shitty plan._

_Micah did the only thing he could think to do. He bit back. And it turned out the vampire had a cut on his arm, right where Micah bit, because the vampire’s blood got in his mouth._

_And then Micah woke up, and he didn’t have the modern luxury of a blood bag._

~~~~

“Alexis, this is Ari. Ari, Alexis.” Micah clapped his hands. “Now that we’re all introduced, who wants food?”

“I’m not hungry,” Alexis muttered.

“Yes, you are. If I promise it’s cow blood, will that make you feel better?”

Alexis thought about it. “Depends if you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not. God’s honest. Give me five minutes to make something that resembles human food, okay?”

“Not tomato soup?”

“Definitely not tomato soup.” Micah’s phone buzzed. He looked at it. “On the other hand, seven minutes, if I have to hold a conversation, too.”

 

Micah, I’m sorry, WHAT

I found a baby vampire  
you know that demon, the one that sounds like the cat from smurfs?

azrael?

I said sounds LIKE  
also why do you know what the cat from smurfs is called   
anyways   
azazel   
Anyways i think one of his guys, or maybe just a coincidence on his block, turned a kid   
So. can we keep her?

Jesus Christ micah

Im not hearing noooo

I dont know how to take care of a vampire  
Literally, no idea   
I dont think i CAN in faerie land   
Micah im pretty sure you’re aware of this, but vampires need blood.

Ok ok  
Ill work something out   
But i wont abandon her   
I know what its like to wake up scared alone and hungry

micah?  
Micah?

 

Micah ignored his phone, and focused on the food for Alexis. Ari was talking to her in another room, and Micah respected their conversation enough to not listen in.

Four minutes later, he presented…

“Jello?” Alexis raised an eyebrow. “Are you kidding me?”

“What? It wobbles!” Micah poked it, just to prove a point. Ari giggled.

“Yah, but Jello is for… for kids.”

“Take that back right now. Jello is for everyone.”

“It’s purple.”

“It’s food dye.”

Alexis rolled her eyes, and let Micah scoop her some Jello. She took a bite and gagged. “I- I was expecting grape.”

“Not much I can do about the taste. Sorry.”

Alexis hesitantly took another bite. “Okay. It’s not… horrible. It’s still salty and awful, but it’s nothing like… before. Kind of like expecting water and getting apple juice, you know?”

“Yes,” Ari said at the exact time as Micah said, “I was born before apple juice.”

“This sucks,” Alexis decided quietly. “This… this wholeheartedly sucks.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Micah. “And I’m sorry, kid. I really am.”

“I want a nap.”

“Yeah, I can understand that. Try and eat, and then you can nap in Ari’s bed.”

Ari poked her finger in Micah’s face. “Oi, I never said—”

“As I was saying,” Micah interrupted, gently moving Ari’s finger away and shooting a very pointed glare at his roommate, “you can nap in Ari’s bed.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I can crash at Sam’s for the night.”

Alexis took exactly three more bites of food. “Okay, I’m done.”

“I… okay, fine.” _Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Lloyd’s better at this than I am._ “You… you can go nap now.”

“I’ll show her where,” Ari offered. “C’mon, kid.”

“How much older than me are you?”

“I’m nineteen.”

“Yeah, okay, I guess to you I’m a kid.”

Once they were out of eyeshot, Micah grabbed his phone and checked his texts.

 

Micah you utter asshole you cannot drop something like that and just  
NOT?? ANSWER??

sorry greenie

so you found a baby vampire

I did, her name is alexis, and i do not know how to parent her

Just do what whoever mentored you did

That is not a good idea

Why not. You turned out fine

lloyd, i taught myself. Over the course of five hundred years.  
So i dont know how the flipping fuck i am supposed to teach alexis aNYTHING

And you think i do?  
Micah, i’ll take her in if i can find a way to make sure she can get food   
But YOU Have to be the one that teaches her how to adjust   
how did you adjust?

badly.

~~~~

_Micah hid in a farmhouse until nightfall again, shaking, his sun-burned hand clutched close to his chest. The sun was an enemy now. It burned him._

_He snuck back into the castle, and every time he touched a crucifix, that burned him too, leaving cross shaped marks on his palms until they healed over._

_He panicked, and ran to his room, and wouldn’t come out for three days._

_On the third day, a castle page knocked, saying his father wanted to see him. Micah barely kept his hunger in check long enough to get past the page and through the meeting with his father._

_Rodge had been engaged to a princess of a country Micah had forgotten. The princess had been engaged to the crown prince, and that was, well, Micah._

_Micah agreed, and then spilled out what had happened to him. He got attacked. He died. He crawled his way out of a grave. And he killed a man and drank his blood. The sun burned him. Crosses burned him._

_Nothing burned him as much as the heat in his father’s voice. “Blasphemy, to claim you rose from the dead. Only Christ himself could do that.”_

Jesus returned triumphant. I did not, _Micah thought, but said nothing._

_Micah forced himself to wear a cross around his neck. He wore it so much that it burned a permanent scar onto his chest. Of course, no one ever knew that. Holy ground? He walked on it so much that the pain no longer registered. There wasn’t anything he could do about the sun issue, but he did everything he could to be normal again. He took cows and sheep from shepherds around the area, and swore he’d never kill a human for blood ever again._

_Micah was out one night when he ran into a warlock. Warlocks- magical beings, immortal, but they were born the way they were, not Turned into it. Micah didn’t remember what he said, but he remembered parts of it. He definitely insulted him._

_Very badly._

_“You will pay for your insults,” the warlock swore._

_“I’m the crown prince, and I’m dead. I don’t know what else you can do.”_

_In the morning, Sinnia, Micah’s sister, fell ill._

~~~~

Micah knocked at Ari’s door, where Alexis was staying. “Knock, knock, kiddo. It’s eleven a.m.”

“Vampires can’t go in sunlight!” She shrieked, but it sounded muffled.

“Are you… hiding under the covers?”

“Have been all night! I don’t want to burn to a crisp!”

“Alexis.” Micah opened the door and walked in. “There’s blackout curtains up around the whole house. After you went to sleep, I put them up.”

Alexis poked her head out from under the covers. “Oh.”

“Come on, I want to show you something.”

Micah took her out into the kitchen. “Now, I need a name for my buddy here. I was going to name him Buster, after Buster from the Mythbusters, but Buster is a crash test dummy, and my pal here is not. I am considering the name Mr. Bloody. Thoughts?”

“Why do you have a life sized human dummy in your kitchen?”

“Oh, well, it’s a funny story. Mr. Bloody here is designed to have every single vein and artery, and have a working cardiovascular system, just like a real human. He’s magic. Now, what you are going to do is practice on him.”

“Practice.”

“Yep.”

“On… him.”

“Yep.”

“Mr. Bloody.”

“Do you have a better name?”

“No way am I going near that thing?” Alexis took a step back. “You’re not supposed to enable me!”

“No, no, listen. The time will come where you will feed on a human again. Trust me. No matter how careful you are, you can’t be that careful. One day, maybe a week from now, maybe a year, maybe a century, you will slip up. And when you do, you need to know what you’re doing so you don’t kill anyone.”

Alexis gulped. “Have you ever… done that?”

“Slipped up?”

“Killed someone. Like… by feeding on them.”

Micah froze. “Once. A _very_ long time ago.”

“Have you killed anyone in a different way?”

“Several. Now, Mr. Bloody is currently filled with cow blood. You’re going to bite Mr. Bloody, and I can measure the amount of blood in his system using an app on my phone.”

“There’s an app for that?”

“There is an app for _everything_. Humans have around 4.7 to 5.5 liters of blood in the body, but for our purposes, let’s just say five, because that’s how much Mr. Bloody has at the moment. At forty percent blood loss, the blood loss is fatal. Your goal is to not kill Mr. Bloody.”

“Just… that’s it? That’s all the instruction I get?”

“Bite wrist or neck,” Micah suggested. “I don’t know the exact scientific reason, but those are the easiest to access most of the time and a hell of a good source.”

Alexis poked Mr. Bloody’s head. “This is creepy. Why did you name him Mr. Bloody?”

“Again- do you have a better name? Look, start when you’re ready.”

Hesitantly, Alexis latched onto Mr. Bloody’s wrist. “Hold his forearm and bring it up to you, better leverage,” Micah said, keeping an eye on the blood meter. “Vampires have a special venom in their saliva that relaxes the victim. Dulls the pain, makes it enjoyable for them.”

Alexis snapped away. “That’s horrible.”

“It can be used for horrible reasons, yes. But think of it this way- would you rather have a person thrashing and panicking and making everything messy and harder and screwing up and getting themselves killed? If you’re careful, you both walk away happy.”

Alexis bit back onto Mr. Bloody. “Careful, you’re nearing thirty percent. If you get that far, they need a transfusion,” Micah warned.

“You said forty!” Alexis snapped at him.

“I said it was fatal at forty!”

“But you should have told me that they needed a transfusion at thirty! And how am I supposed to even tell if I’ve hit forty or thirty or whatever!”

“Listen, Mr. Bloody acts exactly like a human, albeit a very boring and limp one. You have to learn to recognize the symptoms. At around fifteen percent or less, there are no serious side effects. They may feel a little faint. For reference, they draw about ten percent of blood for donations.”

“What happens between fifteen and thirty?”

“They get cooler, and paler, and weaker. Stop as soon as you feel that happening. If you’re starving, don’t die, but don’t go too far.”

“How far is too far?”

“You’ll know it when you’re approaching it.”

“That’s fucking useless!”

“Then just stick to around fifteen!”

“So stop when they get weak and pale and cool?”

“Yes. Stop when they get weak, pale, and cool.”

~~~~

_The first thing that happened was Sinnia, who had always been so full of energy, suddenly couldn’t find the energy to even smile most days. She had bags under her eyes, once green like Micah’s._

_Her hair and eyes started to lose color. She’d always been the palest of the three siblings, and now with silver hair and silver eyes, she looked like a ghost as she walked around the castle._

_She held up for months. It was a gradual process, and one night, when she had some of her old light back, and Micah foolishly began to believe she would get better, she went to sleep and never woke up._

_“Sinnia? Sinnia, come one, it’s nearly lunch,” Micah was still smiling then. “Starling?”_

_Micah was seventeen and she was twelve. That was too young to have to bury his sister._

_Micah was fairly certain his mother getting smallpox a few weeks later was an accident, but he could never be sure it wasn’t the warlock._

_At least that was over quicker._

_His father had been out most nights, or in the library. Micah didn’t know what he was doing until he turned up one evening, just as the sun was setting and Micah could go outside without turning to ash. His father turned up murdered, fang marks on his neck, and Micah made the connection that his father had been searching for a cure to Micah’s vampirism._

_Micah did the only thing he felt he could._

_He ran away._


	2. Chapter 2

“I promise, he’ll love you,” Micah said for the five billionth time, gently squeezing Alexis closer to him. “He’s… he’s amazing.”

“And you’re sure he’ll want to take me in?”

“I mean, nobody is ever truly sure of anything in the grand scheme of things, but I talked to him, a lot, and I really do think he will. Especially once he meets you.”

“And what if he doesn’t?”

“Then I will.” Micah stopped, and turned to face her. “Alexis, I swear on… well, I neither have a life nor a soul, but the point stands. I swear that I will not abandon you. You will have a home, and you will be safe.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Alexis nodded. “Okay.”

Micah pulled a thin, almost unnoticeable green string off of his neck. Tied to the end was a small silver key.

“You wear the key to his house around your neck?” Alexis asked incredulously.

“Hey, it’s convenient,” Micah retorted.

Alexis smirked. “It’s  _ cute _ is what it is.”

Micah rolled his eyes. “Well, you’ll fit right in.”

~~~~

_ Micah left the country, and spent the next fifty years striking his family from history. _

_ Any record of their existence, he made sure it wasn’t accessible. Any record he destroyed, anyone who had known them he bribed, anything that could make it look like they had ever existed was gone.  _

_ He rewrote the family tree, and in fifty years, that’s the way it had always been. Micah’s family never existed. They were in no record, no history book, no diary, nothing at all, at least in the human world and most of the magic one.  _

_ He was sure that someone, somewhere, had record of them, if it was an old faerie with a good memory, or a warlock that had paid handsomely for the information. But most days, Micah allowed himself to believe that he’d made sure his family would never be remembered as the family with the vampire as a kid. _

_ After that, Micah made it a personal, but unspoken, goal to not be complacent in colonialism. Actually, what he did was hide in the wilderness for fifteen years, realized that Europe (including Spain) had seriously fucked up the rest of the world.  _

_ So Micah found himself on the “independence” side of more than one revolution after that, in the following centuries.  _

_ Before that, he did dumb shit. _

~~~~

“Lloyd, Alexis. Alexis, Lloyd.” Micah gestured between them. 

“Alexis, hey,” Lloyd greeted her, offering her a hand. 

“Why do I smell peppermint?”

There was a small sound like a  _ poof  _ from inside the house. Lloyd winced. “My kids are… experimenting.”

“With what, explosives?” Alexis snorted.

“Peppermint. The fact that is exploding is due to unstable magic. Feel free to come in, I should supervise this. Sam- SAM! You are  _ supposed  _ to be the  _ responsible _ one!”

Alexis looked at Micah. “That whole thing about vampires not being able to enter unless they’re invited…”

“Complete bullshit; just good manners.”

“And to make humans feel better,” Lloyd added. “Faeries genuinely cannot lie, though. It’s incredibly annoying.”

“It ain’t for us!” Eliza called from the other room.

Lloyd gritted his teeth. “Eliza Marie Whatever Your Last Name Is, I swear—”

“Swear what?” Alexis asked innocently.

“I was saying she’d get along with your kids pretty well,” Micah sighed.

“Swear what?” Alexis asked again, smirking again.

“Swear that if she continues going down that path, she’ll be sorry,” Lloyd said pathetically.

“And what’s with the whatever your last name is?”

“Well, the thing is, all of the kids have legal last names, but those are the last names of their crappy parents, so that’s out. I sometimes use my father’s last name, but not particularly often, and Kai and Nya’s last name frankly does not sound good with mine. Gotta have that auditory aesthetic. So it would be weird for y’all to use either.”

“What about Micah’s last name?” Alexis asked. “Isn’t he like, everyone’s dad as well?”

“I never thought of that,” Lloyd mused. “I don’t even think I know Micah’s last name.”

“Eh, that’s just a thing the kids say,” said Micah. “Like, I adore them, don’t get me wrong, but using my last name… nah.”

“Besides, I think ‘Eliza Marie Whatever Your Last Name Is’ has a nice ring to it,” said Lloyd.

“Yeah,” said Alexis. “It’s better than Mr. Bloody.”

Lloyd blinked a few times. “Micah?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna quote the undying words of Moana of Motunui here.”

“Okay…”

Lloyd took a deep breath in. “Um, what?!”

“He was teaching me how to feed on humans without killing them,” Alexis explained. “Using a magic crash test dummy called Mr. Bloody.”

“This I’ve got to see.”

“It was both gross and fun.”

“I can imagine.”

“Mr. Bloody isn’t a crash test dummy! And how do you know the words of Moana of Motunui? Last I checked, you didn’t even know Alexander the Great was dead.”

“That is a gross exaggeration; he was before my time, and I stole your Netflix password.”

“How the fuck.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Lloyd smirked.

Micah held up his hands in defeat. “Fine, fine. Don’t tell me, then.”

“I won’t.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Oh, why not?”

“It’s fun.”

~~~~

_ Micah did some extremely dumb shit in his long life. He also had a habit of being in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. That was how he ended up with his first job: assistant to the demon Asmodeus.  _

_ Micah learned several things in the several centuries he was working on the demon’s payroll. He learned how to cheat and lie very well. He learned how to handle a knife very well. He learned how to be a vampire- the magic parts, like encanto, and the parts where he didn’t accidentally kill anyone. Micah killed on purpose, not _ _ by _ _ accident. _

_ In that time, late 17th century, early 18th century, Micah became a Daylighter, able to walk in sunlight. That was kind of Asmodeus’ doing. _

_ Micah also figured out his life philosophy:  _ You are the only one who will always be there for you. Everyone else is subject. Trust sparingly.

_ In the twentieth century, around the 1920s, Asmodeus was destroyed. Micah ran again. He had a habit of that too. _

_ Micah had no particular attachments anywhere. He came and went as he pleased. He still had access to his family’s treasure, of which he hid away a considerable amount of it. Gold and jewels increased in value, and even shitty interest rates would get you somewhere if you had money in a  _ _ bank _ _ for hundreds of years. _

_ Micah didn’t stay too long in any human place, but he had apartments and houses all over. He had a name for himself. He wasn’t sad. _

_ He mistook that for happiness. _

~~~~

“I can stay?! Really?!”

Lloyd blinked a few times. “I… that was never a question? I mean, there’s a bunch of logistics that we need to work out around making sure you don’t starve to death and all, but you can stay. Obviously you can stay.”

“I have an idea around that starving to death bit,” Micah interjected. “Ari has a pendant that she got from her father that keeps her from needing to feed as often. Granted, it may only work because she’s half human as opposed to a human who was Turned, but I can ask her. Maybe she can score you one. And worst comes to worst, I have to regularly bring you cows or sheep or whatever. Or you come to the human world and eat. Not the biggest deal.”

“I. I can stay. I can have a family.” Alexis’s eyes were wide, starry. “I’m gonna be okay.”

“Yeah,” said Lloyd. “Yeah, you are. You’re gonna be okay, kid. And I have a feeling you’re gonna love your—”

“Papa?”

Jewel suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Papa, who’s that?”

Lloyd beamed. “Jewel, this is Alexis, your new sister.”

“Another?! We get another?!” Jewel began bouncing up and down. “Gotta go tell Sam ‘n Eliza!”

“You do that, kiddo,” said Lloyd. “I’m guessing they’ve figured it out by now, but you go do that.” He ruffled Jewel’s hair, earning himself a little scowl.

A few seconds later, Sam and Eliza were being tugged into the room. “We gotta show her the garden!” Jewel declared. “Sam made the  _ biggest  _ snowman yesterday!”

Alexis grinned. “I bet I can make a bigger one.”

“Bet you can’t!”

“Oh, you just wait and see!”

“Wait,” Micah said. “Wait. Alexis. Sunlight.”

Her face fell. “Oh. Yah.”

Micah took a deep breath and grabbed a knife off of the kitchen table. “Gold? Really?” He said to Lloyd as he pricked his own finger. “Okay, Alexis, this is going to sound weird, but if you drink my blood, you can walk in the sunlight.”

“Why?” 

“The magic that makes me a Daylighter can be shared that way.” Micah shrugged. “Just a drop will do.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I’m a selfish asshole, Starling.”

It slipped out.

Alexis raised an eyebrow. “Starling?”

“It… it was a nickname for my little sister.” Micah shrugged it off. “Here, yummy magic Daylighter blood. Go play with your siblings.”

Micah obviously wasn’t going to answer any of their questions, so the kids ran out to play. 

“Reols,” he said to Lloyd once they had left. “My last name is Reols.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister. Starling?”

“Sinnia. Her name was Sinnia,” Micah sighed. “It’s a very long story.”

“I have eternity.”

Micah hesitated. He was selfish. He was secretive. He didn’t trust most people.

Maybe he could be a little less of all of that with Lloyd. A little more selfless. A little more open. A little more trusting.

Maybe it was because he loved him. Micah was in love with him, and he believed you had to be selfless and open and trusting to love, so maybe he was doing something right.

“It all started in Spain…”

~~~~

_ Micah Reols was everywhere, and nowhere. He was in modern Texas during the American Revolution, explored Canada for most of the French one, arriving in time to see the queen’s head chopped off, and was off in Paris as America achieved manifest destiny. _

_ He was a Union Medic in the Civil War. He fought briefly in wars for independence for Argentina, Greece, and the Philippines. He cheered from inside NASA as man stepped on the moon. He cried when smallpox was declared eradicated. He met Van Gogh. _

_ Refrigeration. Cars. Caramel frappuccinos. Micah was there for most of it. He liked being active, but that didn’t mean he was everywhere. _

_ He missed things. He forgot things. He traveled the world and still kept going back to fucking London. He’d perfected accents. He’d forgotten more languages than most people would ever learn. _

_ And even after all these centuries… _

“...I’ve never been back to Spain.”

They were sitting on the sofa, far closer than what the couch required. Alexis was in the garden, getting to know her new siblings—quite successfully, if the giggles outside were anything to go by. Micah was shaking, biting his lips in a failed attempt not to cry.

“I. I don’t know what to say,” Lloyd admitted. “I—”

“It’s okay,” said Micah, like he had said thousands and thousands and thousands of—

“No, it’s not!” Lloyd retorted. “Micah, I lo—respect and admire a lot about you, and one of the things that I respect and admire most is the fact that you don’t let people say that something is ‘okay’ when it’s clearly not. You didn’t let me say that shit when my asshole cousin was stealing kids, and I’m not going to let you say that shit now. Micah, your life has objectively sucked ass.”

Micah’s eyes glinted mischievously. “I mean, you’re not wrong.”

“That… yeah, okay, I walked into that.”

“You did.”

“But the point is, it’s okay that you’re hurting. I get it. I’d be hurting too—hell, I’d be fucking pissed as shit if I went through even half of what you’ve been through.” Lloyd laid a hand on Micah’s lap. “Micah, you have every right to be hurting right now.”

“I’m just worried,” Micah admitted. “Now I’m basically the parent to three faeries and a baby vampire and this is on top of Ari basically being a little sister to me and oh God there’s a lot of emotions around that too—and what if I get her killed too, what if I get  _ Alexis  _ killed or any of your kids or—”

“Micah, can I hug you?” Lloyd asked quietly. Micah nodded. “C’mere… shit, I don’t have a nickname for you. C’mere… eh, whatever. C’mere, Micah.”

And in that moment, Micah couldn’t be happier to have super vampire hearing, because being able to hear every detail of the way Lloyd said his name… it didn’t fix anything, but somehow, somehow, somehow, it helped everything, and his name in Lloyd’s voice kept echoing over and over in his mind.

What he realized, and he felt stupid for thinking this, was that Lloyd didn’t  _ say  _ his name. He  _ caressed  _ his name, softly and gently and—

“I’m here,” Lloyd murmured from just above his head. Micah could feel the vibration in Lloyd’s chest, and Lloyd’s heartbeat.

And then he burst into tears.

Lloyd froze. Then he pulled Micah closer, into a hug, Micah crying on his shoulder. “I’m right here,” Lloyd whispered. Almost instinctively, he started to hum a simple calming spell. And he absolutely blamed that author- the Susan, Suzanne one, or whatever -for completely stealing it from the faeries. It was theirs first.

_ “Deep in the meadow, under the willow…” _

“How the flying fuck do you know that song?” Micah asked, laughing softly.

“It was ours first,” Lloyd muttered. “Call it cultural appropriation.”

“Damn humans,” said Micah. “Keep going. Your voice is pretty.”

“Oh… thank you…” Lloyd pulled Micah closer and kept singing and humming softly.

As he did, he couldn’t help but think. He couldn’t help but think about everything Micah had told him, all of the pain his friend had suffered, and it made him feel… it made him feel a whole myriad of emotions. Anger, and sadness, and indignation, and all he wanted to do in that moment was protect Micah, keep him from ever suffering again.

In the back of his mind, he realized that Micah probably felt the same way.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Lloyd’s magic was very, very tied to his emotions. The more emotions he felt, the more magic he cast, which meant that what had started as a simple calming spell had become far more powerful, enough to begin physically manifesting. Daisies began sprouting from his fingers, shimmering ever so softly green. Grinning softly to himself, Lloyd waved his hand, causing a few of them to fly upwards and weave themselves into a flower crown that landed delicately on Micah’s head.

“There,” Lloyd whispered. “Now you look like a prince.”

“What the actual hell are you doing?” Micah asked, a tiny smile forming despite the fact that he was still shaking with tears.

“I have a green thumb.”

“Evidently.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not really. Do you mind if I cry some more?”

“Not at all. Let it out. I promise it feels good.”

“The kids cry a lot?”

“I cry a lot.”

“Oh. I’m gonna cry now.”

“Go for it. I’m here.”

And so cry Micah did. He cried, and cried, and Lloyd hugged him closer. He wasn’t singing anymore. Now wasn’t the time to try and calm Micah down. He could do that again later. Now was the time to just let it happen.

Micah clung to him, shaking, sobbing, and Lloyd began tracing circles on his back, this time just whispering words of comfort, words of encouragement.

Eventually, though, Micah’s exhaustion got the better of him, and he began to drift off, nuzzling into Lloyd’s arms.

“Ssssh,” Lloyd cooed gently, daring to run a hand through Micah’s hair. Micah almost purred in response. “It’s okay. You can rest now. You’re safe.”

“Thanks, greenie,” Micah mumbled shakily.

“Anytime, Micah.”

“Can you sing the song again?”

Lloyd smiled softly, holding Micah closer. “Of course.”

He began singing again, softly, calling forth more of his magic to help nudge Micah along. This time, there were no daisies, just a warm, soft green glow that shrouded them both, and Micah was asleep within minutes, leaving Lloyd alone with a sleeping vampire in his arms, daisies everywhere, and a softly sung  _ “Here is the place where I love you”  _ escaping from his lips into the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are not endorsed by jello or suzanne collins. if either mentioned party has a problem with the use of their material in our fic, they can fight us behind a denny's but they have to get in line behind both our birth givers, the President of the US, and every whatsit ever. we have a long list of people to fight behind a Denny's take a number
> 
> tumblrs!
> 
> witchlightsands (rose)
> 
> she-doesnt-even-ninjagohere and mod allura on queenshippingofficial (lia)

**Author's Note:**

> breaking news: local bis don't care about leaving their readers in pain
> 
> tumblrs!
> 
> witchlightsands (rose)
> 
> she-doesnt-even-ninjagohere and mod allura on queenshippingofficial (lia)


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